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Booting and Shutting Down Oracle Solaris on x86 Platforms     Oracle Solaris 11 Information Library
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Document Information

About This Book

1.  Booting and Shutting Down an x86 Based System (Overview)

2.  Booting an x86 Based System to a Specified State (Tasks)

3.  Shutting Down a System (Tasks)

Shutting Down a System (Task Map)

Overview of Shutting Down a System

Guidelines for Shutting Down a System

System Shutdown Commands

Shutting Down a System

How to Determine Who Is Logged in to the System

How to Shut Down a System by Using the shutdown Command

How to Shut Down a System by Using the init Command

Turning Off Power to System Devices

4.  Rebooting an x86 Based System (Tasks)

5.  Booting an x86 Based System From the Network (Tasks)

6.  Modifying Boot Parameters on an x86 Based System (Tasks)

7.  Creating, Administering, and Booting From ZFS Boot Environments on x86 Platforms (Tasks)

8.  Keeping an x86 Based System Bootable (Tasks)

9.  Troubleshooting Booting an x86 Based System (Tasks)

Index

Guidelines for Shutting Down a System

Keep the following in mind when you shut down a system:

System Shutdown Commands

The shutdown and init commands are the primary commands that are used to shut down a system. Both commands perform a clean shutdown of the system. As such, all file system changes are written to disk, and all system services, processes, and the operating system are terminated normally.

The use of a system's Stop key sequence or turning a system off and then on are not clean shutdowns because system services are terminated abruptly. However, sometimes these actions are needed in emergency situations.

The following table describes the various shutdown commands and provides recommendations for using them.

Table 3-2 Shutdown Commands

Command
Description
When to Use
shutdown
An executable that calls the init program to shut down the system. The system is brought to run level S by default.
Use this command to shut down servers that are operating at run level 3.
init
An executable that terminates all active processes and synchronizes the disks before changing run levels.
Because this command provides a faster system shutdown, the command is preferred for shutting down stand-alone systems when other users will not be affected. There is no notification sent for an impending shutdown.
reboot
An executable that synchronizes the disks and passes boot instructions to the uadmin system call. In turn, this system call stops the processor.
The init command is the preferred method.
halt, poweroff
An executable that synchronizes the disks and stops the processor.
Not recommended because it does not shut down all processes or unmount any remaining file systems. Stopping the services, without doing a clean shutdown, should only be done in an emergency or if most of the services are already stopped.